I REFORM AND THE REFORMERS Sensible and patriotic Americans have not, of course, tamely and ignobly submitted to the obvious evils of their political and economic condition.

There was, indeed, a season when the average good American refused to take these evils seriously.

He was possessed by the idea that American life was a stream, which purified itself in the running, and that reformers and critics were merely men who prevented the stream from running free.

He looked upon the first spasmodic and ineffective protests with something like contempt.

Reformers he appraised as busybodies, who were protesting against the conditions of success in business and politics.